(NYPost) -- The city is planning to host a massive Times Square party starring superstar rock band U2 to kick off the NFL season, The Post has learned.

Sources said Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff has been talking to National Football League officials for months about staging a mega-event with hundreds of thousands of fans in Times Square on Thursday, Sept. 5 - just six days before the anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks.

"This thing is huge," said one source. "They're treating this like it's New Year's Eve."

The NFL season will begin later that night, when the Giants host the San Francisco 49ers in the Jersey Meadowlands in a nationally televised game.

It's the first time since 1949 the league has launched the season on a weekday.

Sources said U2, which played at this year's Super Bowl, has already been lined up, and other top rock stars are expected, including Jon Bon Jovi.

One Bloomberg administration official said the event is designed to demonstrate the city's resurgence a year after the terror attacks.

The following day - Sept. 6 - Congress is scheduled to meet in New York City for a symbolic session.

The city is anticipating a crowd in the hundreds of thousands for the NFL kickoff, which would require one of the rare weekday closures of Times Square and its surrounding streets.

It could create traffic havoc.

"It's an issue," said one source.

"The NFL is going to have to pony up some money for a public-information campaign. Everyone knows to stay away from Times Square on New Year's Eve. They don't know about Sept. 5th yet."

The event will likely also require a major police presence for security, as is the case on New Year's Eve.

Doctoroff had no immediate comment.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani refused to shut Times Square in 1998 for a huge street party to celebrate the final episode of "Seinfeld," which would have been broadcast on the 42-by-23-foot video screen at the "Crossroads of the World."

"Times Square is probably the most crowded part of the United States," Giuliani said at the time. "You can't close down Times Square for an entire day."

But David Dinkins did just that when he was mayor in 1993.

Dinkins closed Times Square from 3 p.m. to 4 a.m. over several days for filming of the movie "Last Action Hero," which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger.

City officials nine years ago concluded that the publicity value outweighed the inconvenience.